Stunning Gill ton sets up demolition of New Zealand

IND 234/4 (20)

NZ 66 (12.1)

India won by 168 runs

This is the year of Shubman Gill. We are just living in it. To add to this three ODI centuries in the first month of the year, he started the second by becoming the fifth Indian to have scored hundreds in all three international formats. India played the near-perfect innings around Gill anchoring at a two-runs-a-ball 126, and followed it up with the near-perfect bowling performance to bowl New Zealand out for 66.

Hardik Pandya shakes hands with all the dignitaries and goes on to collect the trophy. A well deserved series win for him and this young Indian side.

Hardik Pandya | Player of the Series and India Captain: I don't mind winning (man of the series award), but there were so performances here that were exceptional. This Man of the Series and trophy goes out to the whole support staff, I'm happy for all of them. (On doing things out of the box) Not to be honest, I always play the game like this. I try to read what is required, not have preconceived ideas. In my captaincy, I look to keep it simple and back my gut. I have a simple rule - if I go down, I will go down on my terms. We've spoken about taking challenges. When we played the IPL final, we felt the second innings was more spicy but on this surface today I wanted to make it a normal game because it was a decider. Hence, we batted first. Hopefully, we can continue performing like this.

Shubman Gill | Player of the Match: It feels good when you practice and it pays off. I was backing myself to score big. Didn't happen in the Sri Lanka series, but happy to see it work out now. Everybody has a different technique to hit sixes. Hardik bhai told me to play my game, not do anything extra and he kept backing me. When you represent your country, there is no fatigue. It was my dream to play for India, and I am very fortunate to be part of the team in all three formats.

Mitchell Santner: It was disappointing. It would be nice to take the trophy but credit to India, they played outstanding. Some of their guys are in great nick at the moment. It is tough to win when you lose 5 in the powerplay. It can be challenging when the ball is swinging. If you look at the way India played, they took their time early on and when it got flat, they really had a go at us. (On the World Cup later this year) I guess that time of the year there will be some dew around, most teams might bowl first. We've seen some great wickets, if it is like that in October it will be a great World Cup to be part of and to learn. I think 320 would be the score we'd want to restrict teams to then.